


The Steady Vigil

by AndreaLyn



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 04:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7299109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aramis prays to God for guidance on where he belongs right before Porthos returns to him. Surely, it must be a sign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Steady Vigil

When they return to Douai, with war on their heels, Aramis sets the children into their beds before he goes to the chapel. He’ll have to go after Luke, to be sure, but right now with the enemy (and the _French_ , by god, the French) so close, Aramis is beginning to feel that old familiar thrum in his veins. It’s the feeling that has plagued him since he arrived here so many years ago.

That niggling sensation that he doesn’t quite fit here.

“Stay here,” he insists to the children when he finally corrals Luke, when the Abbot has chided him. 

There is a conversation that must be had.

Aramis makes his way to the chapel and finds a pew with familiarly worn grooves in the wood. His knees have blessed this space as much as any floor in Madame Angel’s. If only the others could see him now, their charming libertine turned pious. And therein lies the trouble, doesn’t it?

“I made you a promise,” he begins, his eyes alight on the crucifix that rests above the altar. “You spared my life and I gave you mine. Yet, for three years, I’ve felt a part of me missing. That skirmish today brought _hope_. It brought me the hope that my farfetched stories might be coming back to claim me.”

There is an unsettling void in him when he prays. He longs to feel the rewarding warmth of solace, but there is nothing.

“Send me a sign,” he prays, searching for a god that will guide him to the right thing. “Please, tell me where I’m supposed to belong.”

He leaves without feeling that his prayers will be answered. It’s a terrible sensation, but there is also the dangerous thrill of hope running in his veins, as if the battle had left an imprint on him and a reminder of the life he used to possess.

How can he go back when he has made his vow?

Surely God will show him the right path. Aramis has faith in that.

* * *

The dark is a terrible place for a reunion, but the moment the dust settles and foes have revealed themselves to be long-dear friends, Aramis cannot help himself. It feels as if he’s been punched in the chest by one of Porthos’ immense fists. 

He stares at him, at all of them, but it’s Porthos where his gaze lingers.

And with that look comes a thought, impossible to shake. _You’re the answer to my prayers_ , thinks Aramis, and longs to touch the man who won’t come near him. In that moment, he knows now what God would have him do. He swallows back bitter disappointment when Porthos won’t even look at him and reminds himself that he has been faithful to a being that won’t even answer him.

Surely he can be patient enough to earn Porthos’ forgiveness.

* * *

It takes time for things to settle. Aramis puts on old uniforms and lets the dust settle around him. He avoids the palace for fear of taking one look at the Queen and Dauphin and never leaving. He allows himself to miss his shots for a few days. And then, finally, his impatience catches up to him.

Porthos is looking at him again. He looks at him and he touches him with such brilliantly long, lingering gropes of his palm that Aramis could sing with joy for it. He begins to return then with eagerness, until they finally begin to ease back into the old grooves of a life Aramis is surprised to find still fits him.

One night, when Athos and d’Artagnan have abandoned them for their women, Aramis is drunk enough to spill his secrets.

“I prayed for a sign, you know,” he murmurs, the wine sweet on his tongue, “the night before you arrived, I prayed to God to send me a sign. I think you were that sign, Porthos.” 

He fears looking up to see rejection on Porthos’ face. Worse, he fears that he will find nothing at all. So it’s a surprise and a heartbreaking pleasure to look up and see that Porthos wears a soft smile on his face and it sets Aramis aback to realize he hasn’t seen that smile in almost four years.

His heart aches with all the lost stories and chances, but God has returned him here. He has set him before Porthos and offered him up another chance at a life in the Musketeers. It’s only that it’s been so long since Aramis has been with them that it takes him so long to see the wicked curve of Porthos’ lips and understand what that smile means.

“Am I your miracle, Aramis?”

“If you were truly a miracle, it would require verification by the hands of God’s workers,” he replies, beginning the slow curve of his own wicked smile. “Have you the time to spare for a poor, lowly man of God to investigate whether such a virtuous and perfect man can truly be real? Or will you let me confirm my suspicions that you are sent from God.”

“I see you never lost that charm,” Porthos huffs out beneath a laugh.

“In truth, I practiced in the hopes one day I would see you again,” he admits, his truth laid bare. “I never expected that it would happen so soon. I thought, perhaps, that we would both be aged and bruised, lucky to be alive. Perhaps, we would meet again as you retired or you would come to me to convalesce.”

“And what would you say to me, then?”

Aramis leans in so that no one else can hear these private words meant for Porthos and Porthos only. “I would tell you that there is no greater gift that God could provide but the company of my best friend and the one person that God outdid himself when he created. I asked for a sign and along you all came. You showed me what I was missing.” He rubs the spot on his chest above his heart. “I was missing you, all this time. I was half-empty.”

Porthos’ smile is riddled with fondness, though the sadness has yet to truly leave it. “You always knew your way around words.”

“If you’ll have me, I’ll show you that my lips and hands have not forgotten their ways, either.”

The agreement is slight and almost imagined, and yet, Aramis has had a decade of reading Porthos to understand every head tilt and shift of his being. When he inclines his chin downwards and his gaze skims Aramis’ body, he knows that he’s won the chance to prove himself.

“Come,” Aramis summons, “let me begin my praise.”

“Always did like praise,” Porthos concurs with a pleased smile.

They’ll make their way back to the way they were. Better, Aramis hopes, that they might be able to work themselves to a new place. He thanks God for giving him purpose and giving him a place and more than anything, for giving him Porthos.


End file.
